Submission Guidelines
Unsent Letters is open to submissions.
If you submit, please know that while we review for the blog posts regularly, if you are selected for book publication, the wait time from submission to publication can be anywhere from six months to sometimes up to two years, depending on the book theme for which your Unsent Letter is chosen and when that book is slated for publication. If you are not able to offer us exclusivity during that wait time, please do not submit until you can, or in the case of blog submissions, please let us know what rights you are able to offer us, so we can determine our offer accordingly.
We do not accept previously published letters for the book, though we will consider reprints for blog publication. Be sure to let us know when you submit what rights are available to your work. If you do not mention rights, we will assume you are able to offer exclusive first publication digital and print rights.
Please do not send queries.
We accept submissions through our online account at Submishmash. You will receive a reply from michy @ TwinTrinityMedia DOT com – so be sure to add that email address to your safe senders list, white list and/or address book so you’re certain to get your response. We will not solicit you, but we do need an email to contact you pertaining to your submission.
In the cover letter section, please put your name and the title of the Unsent Letter you are submitting. If you are submitting a photograph for consideration along with your Unsent Letter, please state so in the body of the email, so we know the attachment is intended. Images should be in .jpg or .png format only.
All Unsent Letters submissions should be in MS Word format .doc or .docx (download the free Open Office and save in .doc if you do not have MS Word) doubled spaced. Please do not use any fancy formatting or fonts.
We will respond to all submissions we receive, even if we are not able to place your letter in our collections or blog. We apologize that we cannot provide detailed critiques or explanations for rejections, but know that sometimes it simply might be because we already have too many similar letters, and might not have anything to do with the quality of your letter, emotion or writing. If you do not hear from us within 12 weeks, assume we have not received your submission and please resend.
If you have any questions, please DO NOT EMAIL. Instead, use the site contact form. Also, be sure to check the writers forum to see if your question might have been answered somewhere else before sending a question to the editors. You can find the writers forum at: http://www.accentuatewriters.com
Thank you for submitting to Unsent Letters. We look forward to reading your submission soon.
UNSENT LETTERS IS CURRENTLY *OPEN* FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR OUR SECOND BOOK. THE FIRST BOOK IS CLOSED.
We are still in the process of contacting and contracting with authors for the first book, so if you submitted to us within the past year, our editors are in the process of contacting everyone. You will receive a response, even if we are not currently able to use your letter, so if you haven’t heard from us yet, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve been rejected. We are backlogged but working as quickly as possible to get things ready to go!
New submissions will be considered for the Unsent Letters themed books and the second Unsent Letters book, all of which are not scheduled for publication until early in 2013.
PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE WE WILL RESPOND TO YOUR QUERY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, THE UNSENT LETTERS BOOK IS NOT SCHEDULED FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL LATER IN THE YEAR AND THE SECOND BOOKS AND SPECIAL EDITIONS ARE NOT SLATED FOR PUBLICATION UNTIL 2013 AND BEYOND. PAYMENT IS MADE IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO PUBLICATION, WHEN WE COMPLETE YOUR CONTRACTS AND PREPARE YOUR MANUSCRIPT FOR EDITING. PLEASE MAKE YOUR SUBMISSION ARRANGEMENTS ACCORDINGLY, BUT DO NOT WAIT TO THE LAST MINUTE TO SEND LETTERS, SINCE THIS IS A VERY POPULAR PROJECT, AND WE WILL CLOSE SUBMISSIONS ONCE WE HAVE ENOUGH TO COMPLETE THAT SPECIFIC EDITION OR BOOK.
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Thank you for your interest in writing for Unsent Letters. Unsent Letters is both a book collection of our best Unsent Letters and a weblog (blog) of Unsent Letters sent in by our favorite readers.
Verbosity (Word count)
Letters can be between 250 – 7,000 words. No exceptions on length.
Payment:
Unsent Letters pays by PayPal immediately prior to publication or via check or money order immediately after publication, mailed with the free contributor’s copies of the book to the author who penned the published Unsent Letter.
Blog posts pay $5.00-25.00 per letter. Unsent Letters provides a live link in your byline and shirttail on the blog when your story publishes, if you so desire.
Compilation editions (paperback, hard covers, digital editions, audio editions, or other electronic of print formats) $25.00-250.00 per letter, plus one free copy of the collection in which the letter appears for each Unsent Letter (if you have three letters in one book, you will receive three complimentary copies of the book), a 40% discounted author purchase price for additional copies, five free matching bookmarks and five free publication announcement cards. NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY, EVER. Authors who choose to purchase 20 or more books per order will receive a 50% discount (an additional 10% off the author’s price), plus the exact cost of shipping (flat-rate is usually cheapest and fastest, but bookrate is available cheaper, but slower).
Unsent Letters might be purchased for both the blog and the book. If you prefer to submit only to the collections or only to the blog, please state so in your submission cover letter.
In rare instances, TTM, LLC will purchase nonexclusive licensed rights for photos that match the letter submitted. These use rights will be negotiated with the author upon acceptance. Submit a copy of the photo with your submission if you’d like it considered. We do not purchase images for the print collection.
The Nitty
You do not have to be a professional writer to submit to Unsent Letters, but we do ask that you follow the simple submission guidelines and attempt to use the best grammar and spelling that you can. Be sure to proofread your letter, don’t use text-speak or abbreviations, spell check our submission, and format it so it is easy to read.
All submissions must be from persons age 18 or older, no exceptions.
The Gritty
Unsent Letters are letters, and as such, should be written in letter format, as though personally written to another person or entity. Please start your letter with some sort of salutation (Dear Someone, To Whom it May Concern, Greetings, etc).
It is acceptable to write the letter to more than one person; for example: your children, your parents, etc. We prefer Unsent Letters be true. We are not looking for fiction or short stories. For anonymity or privacy, you are welcome to change names or locations as necessary–if you are using any identifiable information, please make sure you have permission to use that information or that you have changed the names, locations or information enough so they are not recognizable. We will not edit that type of information in the Unsent Letter, and we will assume you are either permitted to use that information or you have already changed it.
If the letter is not based on actual events, that’s okay, as long as when we read it we can’t tell it was made up. We want real letters from real people to real people or entities. It’s the emotional connection the reader makes with your letter that makes Unsent Letters popular and compelling. If you’re not being honest with the emotion, the reader will know. So when you send your letter, we don’t want you to tell us if the letter is true or not, but if it’s not true, we should not be able to tell the difference.
Important Stuff
Letters should be signed by the “letter writer”, but you don’t have to sign it with your real name. Think along the lines of “Dear Abby” signatures that match the context of the letter. If you prefer, you can sign it with only your first name, or a fake name/pseudonym, but we will need you to give us both your real name and your pseudonym in the body of the email.
Privacy is Respected
Writers who wish to remain anonymous to the public can. When submitting your letter, let us know if you want it published under a pseudonym in your cover letter, and give use the pen name you’d like to use, along with your legal name that belongs on your release form. If you don’t want to reveal your name to us, but still want to submit an Unsent Letter, you can consider submitting to Unsent Confessions instead. We don’t pay for Confessions, because you cannot stay anonymous that way, but you don’t have to give us your name or email when submitting to Unsent Confessions.
The Print Collection
As soon as we have selected enough Unsent Letters to compile for a collection of letters to publish, we will publish the collection through Twin Trinity Media, LLC (TTM, LLC). This is an ongoing project, and there will be multiple editions of Unsent Letters published. We anticipate six to twelve months to prepare submissions approved to print each collection.
Rights
We are asking for North American first publication print, audio and electronic rights. Rights will revert back to author 6 months after publication, and author may reprint their letter in any form at that time, though TTM, LLC and Unsent Letters maintains a perpetual world-wide nonexclusive license to use the letter in the collection, blog, and other formats. Rights reversion letters are available to authors upon written (email) request, for those who need them.
While TTM, LLC will hold the copyright on the compilation, author will retain copyright of their individual letter/s or photographs/images. No other rights are transferred or given to TTM, LLC.
Response
We do respond to all submissions received and you can check your status at any time by logging into your Submishmash account. Unfortunately, we cannot accept all letters. If your letter is not accepted, we do encourage you to write another and submit. It is possible your Unsent Letter is simply too similar to other letters we already have, and a rejection might have nothing to do with quality of the writing or the emotion of the letter. Please do read the topics and review several of our letters to know what we like, what we’re looking for and what we already have plenty of before submitting.
WE DO NOT ACCEPT SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS–we will do our best to review your letter quickly, so you can submit elsewhere if we cannot use your letter. If you find another place you’d like to submit your letter, please use the Submishmash account to withdraw your submission. We also prefer writers wait until you hear from us on your first submission before you submit another. Remember, it might take between 2-12 weeks to review. Please be patient during this waiting period and wait until 12 weeks has passed before emailing or resending your Unsent Letter submission. We will not publish more than two letters from one person in each collection, so know that after we have accepted two letters, we will only consider blog letters until the next book opens for submissions.
If you’re still interested in submitting to Unsent Letters, please read our submissions page for formatting and submission details.
Best to you, and thank you for considering Unsent Letters. We look forward to reading your letter soon.
